Recently, various electronic devices such as a digital camera and a mobile phone have been increasingly equipped with a memory card socket structure for allowing a small-sized storage medium (hereinafter, simply referred to as ‘memory card’) such as a Mini SD Memory Card (®) to be inserted thereinto or taken out therefrom.
Such a memory card socket structure typically has a plurality of contact terminals (contacts) making a contact with terminals (I/O contact surfaces) of a memory card corresponding thereto when the memory card is inserted in a card accommodating portion of a memory card case installed at an electronic device, wherein transception of data and signals is carried out between the memory card and the electronic device via the contact terminals.
The memory card socket structure has a slider installed in the card compartment, the slider capable of moving back and forth in response to the insertion and extraction of the memory card; and a coil spring for urging the slider toward an opening side of the card compartment. By pressing the memory card through the slider, the memory card can be taken out from the socket structure.
Here, a bar-shaped spring guide is inserted through the winding of the coil spring, and the spring guide serves to facilitate positioning of the coil spring while preventing buckling (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-open Application No. 2004-119182, p. 4, FIG. 4).
In the above configuration, however, when assembling the spring guide while keeping it as a separate component from a case of the socket structure, a leading end portion of the spring guide is inserted through the coil spring. At the same time, a collar portion formed at a base end portion of the spring guide is fixedly engaged with a cutoff portion provided at a plate of the case.
That is, the fixation of the spring guide is implemented by just engaging its collar portion with the cutoff portion of the plate of the case. Therefore, it is difficult to significantly increase support strength of the spring guide. Further, since the spring guide is assembled as a separate component, the number of assembling steps increases, resulting in deterioration of productivity.